If my recent posts seem anachronistic, there’s good reason: they are. Rand and I are on the road for a while, so I’ve been scouring my Flickr stream and the Drafts folder of my blog for old photos and stories I haven’t yet shared with you. This is a post I never got around to finishing from our Milwaukee trip in October, 2012.

Sign inside the Miller Brewery.

I’m not a big drinker.

I’m sure some of you reading that are thinking, “Yeah, right.” But it’s true. The cursing and the brutal honesty and the divulging of way, waaay too much personal information to an audience of strangers? That’s me sober. (I once had a waitress cut me off. When I told her I was drinking water, she just stared at me blankly.)

That’s part of the reason why I don’t drink. I can’t imagine all the horrible things I would say if I had a bit of alcohol in my system. (more…)

If this posts seems anachronistic, there’s good reason: it is. Rand and I are on the road for a while, so I’ve been scouring my Flickr stream and the Drafts folder of my blog for old photos and stories I haven’t yet shared with you. This is a post I never got around to finishing from our Milwaukee trip in October, 2012.

The Milwaukee Art Museum is gorgeous. The architecture is so lovely, it’s hard to remember much else about it. I can scarcely recall a single exhibit we saw there. I couldn’t name one piece in the permanent collection. Even the lunch we had at the cafe is hazy in my mind. But the museum stands out in my memory, tall and bright like the building itself.

I love my hometown of Seattle dearly, but I can readily admit: our art museum does not hold a candle to this one. It looks vaguely nautical, slightly organic, yet fully modern. Like the skeleton of some exquisite alien.

The main drawback of communicating mostly through sarcasm (if, indeed, there is any) is this: on the rare occasion when you are sincere, people don’t believe you. They think you are being a snide jerk, and the more you try to convince them otherwise, the worse it gets.

This happened time and again whenever someone asked me what I thought of Wisconsin (and of Milwaukee and Green Bay and the stretch of highway in between).

I don’t mean to say he isn’t religious. At least, I don’t mean to just say that he isn’t religious. There are lots of things that Rand doesn’t believe in or ascribe to. Here is a short list:

Tarot cards

Palm readers

Any type of healing that involves crystals

Putting sugar in your tea/coffee/booze

Using coupons

Pre-rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher

PUTTING DIRTY CLOTHES IN THE GODDAMN HAMPER INSTEAD OF LEAVING THEM IN A PILE OF THE GROUND (Ahem.)

The afterlife

Taking vitamins

Holding your breath while driving through tunnels

The existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or any other awesome and totally real creature

Listening to the nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach

Obeying the GPS

He’s perfectly respectful of people who do believe in those things. I’ve never heard him ever disparage the views of those who think differently than he (as long as those views aren’t intolerant in and of themselves).

There are moments of my life that are so perfect, so ridiculously wonderful, that eloquence fails me.

You’d think that those would be the times when words would come most easily. But when you are surrounded by poetry, it is incredibly hard to create more of it. You simply look around, stupefied, and think, “Heh. This … awesome. Life … good. I … happy.”

That’s what happened one night when we were walking along the river in the Milwaukee.

How things that are strange and weird become familiar and every day. So that after a while, we forget that they’re even all that strange, until someone else points it out to us.

When we first moved back to Seattle from Florida, nearly 20 years ago (good heavens, the years. They are slippery little suckers, are they not?) my mother and I were faced with an odd problem. Our home felt far too empty. My brother had gone off to college, so it was just the two of us, living in far more square footage than we’d ever known.

I’m not referring to those times when the skies above you are cloud free, or when your skin is looking absent of blemishes, almost to the point of vulnerability. No. I live in Seattle, and I eat lots of cake. My clarity does not manifest itself in those terms. (more…)